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The Voyager earned its place in history after becoming the first airplane to make a non-stop flight around
the world without refueling. The story of the Voyager began when famed aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan
formed Scaled Composites and began constructing revolutionary home-built aircraft. His designs, like the
VariEze, used advanced aerodynamic concepts and exploited the properties of lightweight composite materials
to improve performance.

Using these new technologies, Rutan began construction of the Voyager in the summer of 1982 with assistance
from its future pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. The advanced design was optimized for maximum fuel
efficiency with lightweight composites used in 98% of the airframe. These materials gave the Voyager's
structure great strength while minimizing weight. Construction of the molded 1/4-inch (0.635 cm) thick
wing and fuselage skin required 22,000 work hours and 18 months to complete, but the large internal volume
made space for 17 fuel tanks holding over 7,000 lb (3,180 kg) of fuel. Powering the aircraft were two
powerful, lightweight, fuel efficient piston engines with one at each end of the fuselage. The combined
power of both engines was used during takeoffs and landings, but only the aft engine was used during flight
to minimize fuel consumption. Further maximizing efficiency were the use of advanced constant-speed
variable-pitch propellers.

After completing a number of trial flights, including a trip to the Oshkosh Air Show, the Voyager was
finally ready to attempt its record-breaking around-the-world flight on 14 December 1986. Disaster nearly
struck even before the Voyager became airborne when the heavy fuel load so weighed down the wings that the
tips scraped along the runway during the takeoff run. The aircraft finally lifted off just 800 ft (245 m)
from the end of the 15,000 ft (4,570 m) runway. Once airborne, the pilots began a series of maneuvers that
succeeded in breaking off the damaged winglets. Although the damaged tips increased drag, Voyager was
maneuvered by ground personnel into regions of higher tail winds to compensate for the loss in performance.

Thanks to the winds of Typhoon Marge, Voyager reached a top speed of 150 mph (240 km/h) and an average
speed of 115 mph (185 km/h) during its journey. The aircraft traveled a total of 24,986 mi (42,212 km)
based on a route determined by weather, winds, and the avoidance of potentially hostile nations. Although
the majority of the flight proved uneventful, the two crew members were shaken up by a violent storm near
Brazil that forced Voyager into a 90° bank. Further excitement occurred over the Baja Peninsula of Mexico
when both engines briefly failed resulting in a loss of 5,000 ft (1,525 m) of altitude. Nonetheless, the
Voyager continued on to Edwards Air Force Base were it made a triumphant return on 23 December 1986
concluding a journey that lasted 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds.

For their successful flight, the Rutan brothers, Yeager, and crew chief Bruce Evans earned the prestigious
Collier Trophy. Voyager made only one further flight when it returned to the Scaled Composites
headquarters located in nearby Mojave, California. Voyager was then disassembled and donated to the
National Air & Space Museum where the aircraft is now on display.